Schools

Study: Presidents at Mercy, Marist Among Top Paid in Nation

By Patch editor Michael Nocella

Former Mercy College President Kimberly Cline was the 106th highest paid president at a private college in the nation as of 2011, according The Chronicle of High Education’s annual study

Cline became president of Mercy College—which is located in Dobbs Ferry, and has a branch in Yorktown Heights—in 2008. She left the school at the end of the 2012-2013 academic year to take the same position at Long Island University. 

The study, which uses data from federal tax documents, ranks compensation for the 2011 fiscal year – the most recent date of data that was available. 

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It ranks 550 presidents, from University of Chicago President Robert Zimmer, who tops the list making more than $3.3 million a year, to Saint Joseph’s University President Rev. Timothy Lannon, whose annual salary is undisclosed. Dennis J. Murray, the president at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, comes in third on the list, at $2,668,148.

Cline’s 2011 annual total compensation of $653,735 at came in at spot 106. The study, which breaks down the presidents into “comparison groups,” ranked her pay third among presidents at private colleges of similar ilk.

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The study also provides the following “key takeaways” for Cline in regard to her comparison group: 

  • Cline made $362,443 less than the highest-paid president of a similar institution.
  • The median pay for presidents in this peer group was $376,894.

To see the The Chronicle of Education’s entire list, click here.  

As for Cilne's successor, Mercy College is currently conducting a nationwide search for its twelfth president. 


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